WASHINGTON, July 18. /ITAR-TASS/. About 71% of Russians currently have a negative attitude to the United States. The share of positive statements about America has decreased in Russia to 23% this year from 51% last year. The personal positive rating of US President Barack Obama dropped correspondingly from 29% to 15%, suggest the results of a new public opinion poll conducted for the Washington-based Pew Research Centre in 44 countries this March. The study involved some 49,000 people.

The poll confirmed that the electronic espionage and the use of military drones - two programs with which America is now associated in the world - are causing growing resentment. A total of 81% of those polled in the world consider unacceptable US surveillance on citizens of their countries, and 73% - on their leaders. Meanwhile, the attitude to Obama over the past year deteriorated most of all in Germany (the number of his supporters dropped from 88% to 71%) and in Brazil (from 69% to 52%). These countries revealed wiretapping of their leaders by American secret services.

Nevertheless, the researchers state that the attitude to the United States in the world in general remains favorable. On the average, the number of positive responses exceeds the number of negative in the ratio 65 to 25%. The most favorable attitude towards the United States is in the Philippines (92%), in Israel (84%) and in South Korea (82%), and the least favorable - in Egypt (10%), Jordan (12%) and in Turkey (19%).

An important part of the study was comparing the positions of the United States and China, which is regarded by Washington sociologists as the “main international rival” to America. The authors emphasize that the United States is “more popular” than China in the world. Only three countries in the region - Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam - called China a source of threat, while China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan said the United States was a threat. Chinese named Russia their main ally. And the Americans, on the contrary, currently believe that Russia is a threat to them.